Various manufacturing processes exist to form a variety of manufactured articles, such as articles of footwear, apparel, athletic equipment, and the like. For example, a midsole for an article of footwear may be manufactured using one of a number of commonly used molding techniques, such as injection molding, blow molding, compression molding, vacuum molding, and the like. These molding methods often require expensive molding equipment that allows little room for variation in the articles produced from the mold. For instance, any change to the design of the molded article generally would require the creation of a new mold. These manufacturing methods generally required a costly retooling anytime a change was made to the molded article design. In addition, molding processes often result in material waste as some material may be trimmed from the molded article in a post-manufacturing processing step.
In addition, conventional molding and article manufacturing methods often leave little or no ability to customize the article, such as an article of footwear, to the particular needs or desires of the wearer. That is, conventional articles of footwear, apparel, athletic equipment, etc. are often mass produced. While some articles are produced in varying sizes, articles are rarely manufactured to the specifications of one particular user.
Further, articles, such as articles of footwear, have regions prone to wear, such as flex regions, high stress regions, etc. Early wear in these regions can cut short the useful life of the product while other areas of the product continue to be capable of functioning at a high level in the intended manner.